Hey Cat,
For those of us who don't know the actual numbers, how much time and money does it take to get and maintain FTU OC? What portions of operations are actually monitored?
Happily-retired that is a difficult question to answer because a lot depends on where you wish to set it up.
There is a very big difference between setting up in a small town in say Alberta with their low tax structure and the low cost of rental or ownership than compared to lets say Toronto Island.
But you have to put in place enough hardware to pass the initial inspection for the FTU and of course an airplane is a must.
It has been six years since my last application and I am not sure exactly what it cost me to get it to the point of passing the inspection. ( which I did by the way. ) I had a class one on the payroll for months during the process and he was paid a very good salary during the start up process and had the school opened he was to be paid $50.00 for every hour the airplane flew dual or solo.
The fees were $600.00 for the flight training inspection and $400.00 for the M&M inspection. ( It was M&M who was the problem in my application. )
Anyhow you must be perepared for months of waiting while the paper work is approved and all that costs money.
I also had a school from 1986 to 1991 with six singles , one twin and one R22 helicopter plus my own maintenance set up..you don't have to go back to school to figure out that cost a lot of money, the R22 on floats was $170,000 just on its own.
The bottom line is unless you have a fair amount of money you want to risk with the possibility of earning around 5% profit on it starting a school is very risky money wise.
Maybe I'm a bit off on the earning 5% bit but it is close.
On the other hand why can't a Canadian citizen with an instructors license just start up and run a school without all the B.S. you have to go through for the FTU OC dance with TC.
Is it because TC feels you instructors are untrustworthy and don't know what you are doing? If that is the case why did they give you the license in the first place.
It doesen't make sense to license someone and as part of the licenseing process comes understanding the rules...so why in fu.k can't you run a school if you are qualified without having to spend all that effort and time playing paper work games with TC?
By the way I have also owned two charter OC's which were a bit more profitable than the schools.
